Rotatable disk two year calendar having a grilled mask



March 15, 1949.

C P. POTTER ROTATABLE D'ISK, TWO YEAR CALENDAR HAVING A GRILLED MASK Filed July -l4, 1944 Patented Mar. 15, 1949 RoTA'rABLE DISK Two YEAR CALENDAR HAVING A GEIL-LED MASK Charles P. Potter, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Application' July 14, 1944-, srial No. 544,877 In Canada March 30, 1943 1 Claim. (ci. fit-113) This invention relates to calendars of the type which are manually operated to display different dates such as described by my co-pending application, Serial Number 441,815, which has been abandoned, and my object is to save material and labor by providing a practical commercial calendar which will display accurate dates for each month of a plurality of years, arrangedso that each month will be displayed in consecutive order, employing a minimum number of columns of dates so that the size of the dates displayed for a given month is large and legible, occupying the widest practical area.

I attain my object by means of the construction hereinafter described and shown by way of J example in the attached drawings in which Figure 1 is a front elevation partly broken away;

Figure 2 a detail of the rotor in Figure 1; and

Figure 3a cross sectional detail of the parts in Figure 1. ,n

In the drawings like numerals of reference Vindicate corresponding parts in the different gures,

The rotor R has a plurality of substantially equally spaced apart columns A, B of dates representing the days of the months. The alternate columns A, B form different series kso that several sets lof dates, each set representing one month, may be produced by employing different combinations of columns A, or of columns B. That is to say, any suitable seven alternatecolumns in any one series forms a set to represent a month. In the construction shown each of the twelve months is designated twice on the rotor R so that it will serve for two years. The month designations or titles for one year, shown as 1944 in the drawing, are arranged in consecutive order in the arc of a circle around the center of the rotor adjacent the inner or upper ends of the date columns and in alignment with selected columns. The month designations for the following year,

1945, shown in the drawing are located at the lower or outer ends of selected columns.

It will be noted that although month titles for a plurality of years are provided and positioned anti-clockwise around the' rotor, that month titles are adjacent to onlyksome of the columns and It will be observed that there are six groups of spirally arranged numbers, three of them containing the numerals 1 to 30 representing thirty day months, and three of them containing the numerals 1 to 31 representing thirty-one day months. Series. A includes the groups of numerals from 1 to 30, and series B the groups of numerals vfrom 1 to 31.

It will be noted from the drawings that in the inner row of numerals thenumeral 2 of a thirtyday series always immediately follows the numeral 6 of a thirty-ione day series. This arrangement makes it possible to arrange the months of each year in consecutive order in association with the proper columns of dates. The same result is obtained by, placing the numeral 2 of a thirty-day series of dates immediately after the numeral 5 of a thirty-one day series. It is merely a matter of choice which arrangement is selected, but it has been found by experiment that in some two year periods the month titles may be more evenly spaced orv distributed around the rotor R with one arrangement than the other. The essential feature is that the numeral 2 of a thirtyday series will always be positioned between numerals 5 and 7 of a thirty-one day series.

It may also be observed that the numbers are arranged in sucha' manner as to cover a complete circle, a total of 360, and in any consecutive seven columns of a series forms a segment of substantially 120.

The stator F hasv seven cutaway portions D, marked to indicate the days of the week. Intermediate the cutaway portions are six solid portions E. The stator is also provided with two apertures F and G, one of them above and within and centrally of the cutaway portions B, and the other, G, being located below or outside of and centrally of the said cutaway portions. These apertures F and G are arranged to register with the arcuately arranged month designations on the rotor. Adjacent to the apertures F and G is the designation of a year, for instance in the drawing the year l1944 is shown adjacent the apertu're F and the year 1945 is shown adjacent the' aperture G. K

The rotor R is journalled at I-I in the stator S. By turningthe rotor the desired month is brought into register with the' aperture associated with the desired year, for example, February 1944 as sho-wn in Figure 1. In this position the cutaway portions D will show the correct set of dates under the proper days of the week, for that month. At the same time the six columns of dates between the adjacent columns on display are covered by the intermediate portions E. All other days) and February 1945 (28 days).

columns of dates are covered by the body of the stator S.

It will be noted that although there are two series of columns, both series are used in order to get the proper set of dates for each month in any one year, that is to say, one series is not used exclusively for one year. It will also be observed that the same columnsare used for more than one month, that is to say there is an overlapping, by which means sets of dates for all of the months are obtained with a minimum number of co1- umns, and thus, the dates can be displayed in a relatively small space and in relatively large numbers.

It will be seen, too, that there are no Waste areas as all available space is lled with dates all l of which serve a practical purpose in that they all form part of the dates of Various months of a plurality of years. The columns of dates in each series are arranged alternately with dates in adjacent columns and lat wide apart intervals. This not only improves their visibility but helps `to provide a large and legible display that could only be obtained otherwise by greatly increasing the size of the device.

It will be observed that when the rotor is rotated to display the designation for a month in the aperture provided therefor in the stator, the exact number of days for that month are displayed in the cutaway portions D. This result is obtained essentially by positioning the numerals representing the dates relative to one another in such a way as to obtain accurate dates for most of the months and by providing for months having less than thirty days, or even less than thirty-one days if desired, by offsetting certain numerals and blocking them off by the stator, for example by offsetting the numerals 29 and 30 in two of the columns and by making the fourth,

fifth and sixth cutaway portions D somewhat shorter than the other cutaway portions. In the drawing the date 29 for February 1944 is positioned bel-ow the circumferential row including the numerals 27 and 28 in the same series and the date 30 for April 1944 follows the date 29,

`also offset whereby 29 is displayed in the third dates corresponding to that month title, then `the undesired date or dates are blocked olf and only the desired dates displayed without affecting the consecutive display of the titles.

It will be noted, therefore, that while two series of columns are used, one of these series (a 30 days series) by reason of the blocking-off means in the stator, is made to serve for other months of varying length such as February 1944 (29 Obviously this does away with the necessity of using more columns of dates which would mean the using vof more material and labor to give the same results, as it permits the use of the minimum Number number of numerals representing dates to be displayed over a large area-and Ypermits the simultaneous display of accurate dates with corresponding month titles--all in proper consecutive order for a plurality of years. Thus an orderly display of accurate dates and month titles is made possible within one only clockwise revo- 1 lution of the rotor.

Anot spread out so as toA make it difiicult to read.

What I claim as my invention is:

A calendar comprising two relatively movable members, one of said members having sets of designations representing the months of a plurality of years arranged thereon and a plurality of radially directed date columns formed of a plurality of series of dates, the dates of one series intervening between the dates of another, each of the series of dates being formed of dates arranged in consecutive order spirally around the member, one of said series comprising numbers 1 to 31 and another series comprising numbers l to 30, the numeral 2 of the latter series being positioned between the numerals 5 and 7, of the thirty-one day series, and the other of the relatively movable members being provided with apertures to display, when the members are moved relative to one another, successive month indicia and corresponding date columns for a plurality of years, certain dates in said columns being oifset below said columns and the apertures in said other member being fashioned so as to sometimes conceal and sometimes expose the offset dates, in order to display only the actual num-ber of days in each month displayed.

CHARLES P. POTTER.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Name Date Post July 8, 1902 Applebaum Jan. 15, 1918 Moerk May 21, 1918 Kelly Apr. 5, 1921 Bartlett July 4, 1922 Stevenson June 16, 1925 Nogrady Nov. 20,1928 Johnson Mar. 19, 1929 Post Sept. 27, 1938 Grantham Oct. 25, 1938 FOREIGN PATENTS Country Date Great Britain Nov. 29, 1906 Great Britain Apr. 3, 1936 Number 

